EC Seeks Extra UGX73.36bn To Cater For Polling Officials’ Enhanced Pay

Presiding Officer tallying the 2021 poll results in Gulu – Photo by Dominic Ochola

The Electoral Commission is seeking for additional UGX73.364Bn as  payment for polling officials in which the presiding officer’s pay will be enhanced from UGX50,000 to UGX100,000 per election.

On the other hand, the polling assistants pay is expected to increase from UGX40,000 to UGX75,000, an enhancement that has been static for 15years.

The breakdown of the payment was revealed by Richard Kamugisha, Acting Secretary, Electoral Commission, while responding to the question raised by Yusuf Nsibambi (Mawokota South) during a meeting held between Parliament’s Budget Committee to consider the UGX469.5bn supplementary budget.

Nsibambi said: “Under item 15, payment to polling officials during presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections, it is an anonymous description. Can you please categorise those people who want to know? Specifically, when you go for elections, you have police constables, you have other people coming in. We don’t want to appropriate funds for people who are not recognised. I can assure you, Police constables, do have a big role on the ground and they are described under the law, but when they go on the ground, they are under security organisations. Can you please tell us which people we are funding and then we give out the money?”

Kamugisha replied saying that although the Commission already has money set aside for the payment of polling officials, however, additional funds are meant to cater for the increase in the polling stations that increased from the initial 38,000 to 50,739 polling stations ahead of the 2026 general elections.

He explained, “There are two things here, one, we are seeking to enhance the payment for polling officials for the presiding officer from UGX50,000 to UGX100,000 per election. Then the polling assistants from UGX40,000 to UGX75,000, which we have been paying for the last 15 years. But the polling officials who are serving at the polling station, presiding officer, and BVV operator, and four other polling assistants and a constable, they will each get UGX75,000. Again, it’s UGX100,000 for the presiding officer and 100,000 for the Biometric Voter Verification operator.”

In the same meeting, Ojara Mapenduzi (Gulu West) sought clarification if Uganda would utilize the current electoral period to have elections of LCIs also incorporated in the electoral cycle as had been earlier promised.

He noted, “We recommended that the Electoral Commission should have elections for LC1 and 2 done within the same period of the general elections ad we were informed that if these elections were to be held separately, for LCI and LCII would require up to about UGX54Bn, but if the elections were to be held within the same period during the general election, it would take about UGX39Bn. So, Parliament took the decision to support that indeed we don’t need to wait, we need to have the elections for LC1 and LC2 within the same period.”

“Unfortunately, I have not seen in the work plan or the roadmap of the Electoral Commission indicating clearly when the election for LC1 and LC2 will take place. So, I would need to understand whether this amount being talked about for payment of polling officials and all that includes the election of LC1 and LC2,” Mapenduzi added.

Kamugisha replied, “We are talking about elections conducted under Article 61 clause 2. We have LC1 and LC2 on our roadmap, but it is outside for some other discussion.”